‘Global growth is a challenge; tech can help’

“While AI can be very disruptive, it is also going to create a lot of opportunities, a lot of winners – and I suppose some losers as well," said Pavitra Shankar, Managing Director, Brigade Enterprises Ltd.

Innovation is the need of the hour, said executives at an event on Wednesday organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Karnataka.

The United States used to be a leader of the western block, but now it seems to be adopting a country-first approach, pointed out Kamal Bali, President and Managing Director, Volvo Group India.

There will be many shifts as a consequence of that. With the US’s tariff strategy, divergent inflationary trends, and other shifts, there is a global feeling of uncertainty, he said.

The key priority for the world is to get global macro-stability, and global growth, which has become a challenge. All of this is going to come through innovation and new tech, said Bali.

Industry executives echoed the sentiment, highlighting the importance of tech in each of their sectors.

“While AI can be very disruptive, it is also going to create a lot of opportunities, a lot of winners – and I suppose some losers as well. So all of us running organisations need to stay on top of how to incorporate and make the best use of it,” said Pavitra Shankar, Managing Director, Brigade Enterprises Ltd.

Automotive industry executives agreed, pointing to the technology disruption in the sector.

Technology will cause several changes such as an increased supply of semiconductors, high performance computing, fast pace of software – coming into the auto space like never before, said Guruprasad Mudlapur, Managing Director, Bosch Limited.

He pointed out that in the global context, autonomous driving technology is gaining very rapidly into the auto space.

Still, this is not seen in the Indian context, with Bosch also being many years away from autonomous cars, he added.